The Sandman and the War of Dreams

  “Thanks, Djinni,” called out the youngest William as the metal robot dropped all the Williams and their belongings at their house.

  “It was my pleasure,” said the djinni in its usual way—crisp and exact and with a chimelike quality, as though it were a talking music box.

  North, Ombric, Toothiana, and Bunnymund were busy settling into the comforting hollow of Big Root. The interior of the gigantic tree was tidier than they had left it. While they had been gone, the owls had organized the insects and squirrels into a very efficient cleaning brigade.

  North, Ombric, and Bunnymund were scouring the library’s newly constituted volumes for any hints that could lead them to Mother Nature’s whereabouts, while Toothiana, who also spoke fluent owl, quizzed the wise birds on many points of mutual interest. They were desperate to begin their attempt to rescue Katherine.

  From the very beginning, the Guardians had the ability to feel the thoughts and emotions of one another when needed. If one Guardian was in the next room or on the other side of the globe from the others, a call for help could be sensed. But that made it all the more strange that they had heard nothing from Katherine. And they were deeply alarmed that the woman who had taken both Katherine and Pitch was, in fact, Pitch’s daughter. Though this Mother Nature clearly possessed enormous power, the Guardians had no clue as to how she had acquired it. They weren’t even certain of the extent of her powers. Or whether she was good, evil, or both.

  North was particularly frustrated and echoed all their thoughts. “We know more about making chocolate milk than we do about Pitch’s daughter and how she came to be this so-called . . . Nature Mother or Mother Nature. We’re supposed to be the wisest men on the—”

  Bunnymund felt obliged to interrupt his friend. “The two of you are indeed men, and you possess an impressive amount of knowledge for humans of your generations. But, my dear North, must I remind you that I am a Pooka and not a man?”

  Sometimes Bunnymund’s precise and exact nature could be inadvertently funny . . . or inadvertently irritating. Often at the same time. North looked at the enormous rabbit, who stood even taller than himself. He poked a single finger at one of Bunnymund’s impressively large ears. “Holy smoke, you’re right! I’ve never noticed your ears.”

  Bunnymund blinked twice. One ear twitched slightly. As did his nose. “Really? You never noticed my ears? Oh. I understand,” he responded. “That was an example of the peculiar human method of communication known as ‘sarcasm.’ ”

  “Or a joke.” North smirked. “Someday I’ll make you laugh, Bunnymund.”

  “Me, laugh?” The rabbit looked particularly baffled. “That would be historic. Pookas don’t laugh.”

  North grinned. “No kidding.”

  “Actually, no. I mean, yes. Well, either way, I’m not, as you say, ‘kidding.’ Pookas never laugh, as far as I know, and have difficulty in kidding.”

  “I know!” said North.

  “Then why did you say it? Oh! You were restating an obvious fact, to underscore your perception that I needn’t have stated the fact in the first place. In other words, you were again being sarcastic and or making a joke.”

  “Nope,” North said. “I was just kidding.”

  The rabbit’s ears, nose, and whiskers were now twitching like mad. “I . . . you . . . that . . . doesn’t entirely make sense.”

  “Really?” asked North. “Are you kidding?”

  “No. I mean, yes. Wait. Yes to the first question and no to the second one. But are you kidding or joking with me?”

  “Neither,” said North. He was deeply pleased. He had finally discovered a way to confound the brilliant rabbit. “I was just being silly.”

  “Look,” said Bunnymund, twitching all over, “I have tried to embrace this thing you call ‘humor,’ but I do not see the difference between ‘kidding’ and ‘joking’ and ‘being silly.’ ”

  “Or jesting?” North said.

  “That . . . Well . . . it’s . . .”

  “Or making a quip?”

  “No . . . I mean . . .”

  “How about a wisecrack?”

  “A crack? In something solid? How can that have wisdom?!” asked the rabbit.

  “It can’t. It just needs to tickle your funny bone,” North said, smiling.

  The rabbit, however, was panting with frustration. “What are you talking about?! There is no such bone in any known creature. Humor is a mental activity, and it has nothing to do with the skeletal system. To claim so is complete nonsense!”

  “EXACTLY!!!” bellowed North.

  Ombric had been deliberately ignoring his two comrades. He was buried deep in one of Bunnymund’s egg-shaped books.

  Ombric was astounded: The rabbit had vast records of all the natural occurrences of the Earth. This wasn’t unexpected. He was a creature attuned to nature, more so than any human. But it was how his books were written that was so surprising—in the highly technical phrasing that was typical to Pookan literature. The Earth was usually described as “the planetoidal orb.” Earthquakes were referred to as “high-volume terra firma displacement events,” and so on.

  Midway through the chapter titled “Peculiar Interstellar Phenomena from the Dawn of Time till Last Tuesday,” Ombric found something described as an “extraterrestrial solid matter of some interest hurtled through the atmosphere and into a large body of oceanic fluids in the southern Pan-Pacific region in the two millionth equinox cycle.” In other words, a meteor or a shooting star had crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, sometime near the end of the Golden Age. Ombric was startled to discover that soon after this event, the weather on Earth changed profoundly. Before, there had been almost no storms of any kind, but since this meteor had arrived, nature had become far more dramatic. Unpredictable. Is this the beginning of Mother Nature? Has Pitch’s daughter come to be here on a shooting star? wondered Ombric.

  At that instant Nightlight flew through one of Big Root’s knothole windows. As the Guardian who was most deeply connected to Katherine, Nightlight always knew before any of them if she was in trouble or not. Now the poor boy looked stricken.

  A sudden, terrible dread came to them all. They felt certain that Katherine was in grave peril. The owls began to hoot. Toothiana’s feathers stood on end.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Grab a Tear, Save a Story

  THE NIGHT WAS OPPRESSIVELY dark. The stars themselves seemed to shrink. Nestled into the upper branches of Big Root was Katherine’s tree house. Though it was empty of Katherine, it was not exactly empty. Kailash, now fully grown, sat dejectedly in an impressively large nest, which also served as the tree house’s roof. Being full grown meant Kailash was considerably larger than other species of geese. She was quite large even for her own breed. Her wingspan was roughly forty-five feet, and even while sitting in her nest, she was taller than any man.

  But her nature was gentle and her emotions still childlike. She was heartbroken over Katherine’s disappearance and could barely raise her long neck to respond to the kind attention of the village children who had snuck away from their own beds to comfort her. Petter and his sister, Sascha; the brothers William; and even Fog, who was usually too sleepy for such late-night adventures, were there. They petted Kailash, smoothed her feathers, and tried to convince her to eat. But the giant goose would only make a sad peeping sound.

  Petter, who had a fine sense of how to cheer everyone up, suggested that Mr. Qwerty tell one of Katherine’s stories.

  He opened himself to read one of Katherine’s earlier tales, but his voice cracked and faltered. Tears filled his eyes and spread slowly down the handsome leather binding of his book spine.

  None of the children had ever seen a book actually cry, which was not surprising, as there had never before been a book that was able to. But the tears that fell from the page to the soft leaves around Kailash’s nest surprised them further. Each tear had inside it a letter or a question mark or some other form of punctuation.

  It was Sascha who
understood the ramifications of this.

  “That’s Katherine’s handwriting!” She gasped. “Please don’t cry, Mr. Qwerty. You’re crying out Katherine’s stories!”

  But this caused the poor book to sob even harder. Tears and letters began to spill out at an alarming rate. If this continued, all of Katherine’s stories would be drained away.

  The children became desperate, and Kailash also began to weep. They reached out to comfort the goose, then turned at the sound of something landing on the far side of the nest. Nightlight was back! He had been with them earlier and had not seemed like himself at all. He was moody, dark, and almost afraid. Then he had left hurriedly. But now he was like the Nightlight of old. He flashed and flickered and grabbed at every fallen tear. Nightlight had amazing abilities with tears. The children had seen this before. He’d once taken their tears and used them to repair his broken diamond dagger that could cut through any armor. But these tears were different. He cradled them in his hands with extraordinary tenderness, as though he held a most delicate treasure. These were Katherine’s words and thoughts. This was a treasure that must never be lost. He tucked the wordy tears into his pocket.

  Then he looked from the children to Kailash to poor Mr. Qwerty, who thankfully had stopped his sobs. What hope could he offer them? He knew Katherine was in terrifying peril, and he had no idea how to help her. How could he possibly comfort his friends—Katherine’s friends?

  He felt himself dimming again. Now they’d see for themselves his own desperation.

  But Nightlight was a creature of light, and he could shine or feel more in a shadow than any other being. So of course he was the first to see, in the evening shade of Big Root, a light in the sky coming toward them. A sort of lustrous, radiant cloud.

  He could feel his hope returning, and he brightened, leaning toward the light. The others turned to see what he was looking at. One by one, they cried out as they began to see the cloud, a cloud unlike any they’d ever seen—one that left them feeling that hope can sometimes travel in the darkest night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Sandman Cometh

  MOMENTS EARLIER NORTH HAD been in midsentence when Nightlight had flown suddenly out the window. The boy was frantic to help Katherine, and North had been trying to calm him. For all his bravery and powers, Nightlight was not used to controlling his feelings. Especially feelings like hurt and worry. He wanted to do something. He wanted to help Katherine right then!

  North was the closest to understanding what Nightlight was going through, for he had been almost as wild and carefree when he was a lad. Why, he’d lived as a wild child of the Russian forest, raised by Cossack bandits, which is almost the same as being raised by bears. But his attempts to ease Nightlight’s anxiousness had lasted about six words before the boy vanished.

  Bunnymund sensed North’s concern. “In my observations, beings between childhood and adulthood are even more prone to confusing behavior than during any other of the confusing times that inflict most species,” the Pooka said.

  “He wants to think he can figure everything out for himself,” said North, eyeing the rabbit. “A characteristic common in many species, no matter their age.” He poked one of Bunnymund’s ears.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to infer, North,” said Bunnymund. “I do not like to figure everything out. I simply always do!”

  Before North could make a snappy response, they became keenly aware of an intense sensation of lightness around them. Not only was there an otherworldly glow to the air inside the tree, but gravity itself seemed to have less pull. They literally felt light on their feet.

  “Is someone casting spells?” asked Ombric, glancing around at the others.

  A soothing sound enveloped them. Ombric hazarded a guess as to its origin. “It’s like the falling sand from a thousand hourglasses.”

  Under normal circumstances, the orb at the tip of North’s sword would have sent out some sort of alarm, but evidently, it found nothing to be alarmed about. Even when the three Guardians began to float from the floor—first a few inches, then higher and higher—the orb stayed silent. Graceful twists of golden glowing sand ebbed up through the floorboards, pushing them gently but firmly out the giant knothole window and up toward Big Root’s upper branches.

  As they floated ever higher, none of them, oddly, sensed they were in any danger. Rather, they felt incredibly calm, as though this unprecedented occurrence was simply the way things were somehow supposed to be, which was equally odd. Were they all being drugged? Was this some new magic? If so, they sensed it wasn’t a dark sort.

  As they approached the treetop, the whorls of sand seemed to be settling more at their feet. To their amazement, they could see that every other creature of Santoff Claussen, human or otherwise, was also floating through the evening sky. Bear, Petrov the horse, even the Spirit of the Forest and Queen Toothiana—they were all rising up and rotating around Big Root.

  When they all reached the top and were level with Katherine’s tree house, they saw Kailash surrounded by the children. Those in the nest were transfixed by something else. Just above them floated a rotund little man. He had wild swirling golden hair, and he seemed to be glowing from within.

  Nightlight stood just below the little man, and as the villagers watched, he began to kneel, as though the man were a king of some kind. The man seemed very friendly; his smile was radiant. It was a smile of total reassurance and gave all who saw it a feeling of intense well-being. Not joy, but something akin to a sleepy peace. A sort of not-a-worry-in-the-world sensation. None of them, not even the Guardians, were able to do anything more than gaze at this gentle fellow. And though he did not speak, they felt as though they heard him say a single whispered phrase: Time now for a dream. Then, with a wave of his little hands, the sand began to spin around them. It did not sting, nor did it get in their eyes. It felt rather like the tickling of a soft bed sheet. Then everyone, right down to Bear, fell into a deep, restful sleep.

  But this was no ordinary sleep: They began to share an experience that seemed like a dream, for it was dreamlike, but every moment of it was amazing, and somehow, they knew it was absolutely true. They felt they were being given a history in the very best way this friendly little man knew how. And they were certain to remember every detail, for Mr. Qwerty, who was the only one not asleep, was recording the story of this dream experience on his pages. He knew Katherine would not mind. She loved a good story.

  This one might also help save her life. And here was how it began. . . .

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Dream Pause

  My name is Sanderson Mansnoozie, and I have no age.

  My story is the story of many dreams. Dreams do not exist within the realm of hours or minutes or any measure of the day. They live in the space between the tick and the tock. Before the tolling of the bell, past the dawn, and beyond the velvet night. I am from a place that was a dream, a place called the Golden Age. And though it may be a place of the past, it is not gone. The dream of it lives still.

  My telling it to you will make that so.

  I was once a Star Captain in the Golden Age, born to guide the stars that would not stay still. Stars are an amazing phenomenon—all but the rarest stay in place. You see them in the night sky, and you always will. But a few—a precious few—are restless, driven on and on by too much energy or curiosity or even anger. . . . These are the ones we call “shooting stars.”

  As a star pilot, I belonged to the League of Star Captains, a cheerful brotherhood devoted to the granting of wishes. We each had a wandering star that we commanded. In the tip of our star was our cabin, a bright compact place, much like an opulent bunk bed. We journeyed wherever we pleased, passing planets at random and listening to the wishes that were made to us as we passed. If a wish was worthy, we were honor-bound to answer it. We would send a dream to whomever had made the wish. The dream would go to that person as they slept, and within this dream, there would be a story.

  If t
he story was powerful enough, the person would remember it forever, and it would help guide them in their quest to make the wish come true. These dreams were considered one of the greatest treasures of the Golden Age. But to create the dream in the first place, we had to be asleep. So we were often asleep and dreaming, even as we flew, and our stars would awaken us if trouble lurked.

  And trouble wasn’t difficult to find. Dream Pirates prowled every galaxy. They were nasty, stunted creatures who lived by stealing dreams. At first they ruthlessly plundered these dream treasures of the Golden Age for the bounty they could raise for their return. But then they discovered an even more wicked motive for this crime. If they consumed a dream, it made them stronger, tougher, and more powerful in every evil way.

  So we Star Captains fought hundreds of battles with the Dream Pirates, at least until the great war that ended them. We weren’t without help—the other planets and Constellations of the Golden Age banded together and formed the greatest fleet in the known universe, led by the most brilliant and fearless captain in history, Kozmotis Pitchiner, Lord High General of the Galaxies. It was Lord Pitch (as he was called by his sailors) who sailed unceasingly to every corner of the heavens and hunted down legion after legion of Dream Pirates. Though he was victorious and had become the greatest hero of the Golden Age, he paid a most terrible price. And that is where this story of my life takes an unexpected turn.

  The tragedy of Pitch and what brought him low became the center of my journey. It is the story of Pitch and his lost daughter.

  Of how she became lost.

  Of how Pitch was broken past healing.

  And of how his daughter became the one you call “Mother Nature.”